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Archive for tag "Battery"

Ecosummit TV: George Hanna pitches Qinous at ECO14 Berlin. Qinous develops smart energy storage and management systems for offgrid and ongrid applications starting at 30 KW and going up to the MW scale by combining a large number of battery systems. Qinous acts as a solution provider that makes the system in Berlin and then ships it to the customer ready for installation. Being independent of the underlying battery technology, there is a strong focus on thorough battery testing as part of the design and production process. Founded in Q4 2013, the smart green startup raised their seed round from Investitionsbank Berlin in Q1 2014 and sold the first system in Q2 2014. That’s what we call fast execution. Next year, Qinous plans to raise their Series A from strategic investors and is very interested in getting to know the best smart green VCs in Europe.

Ecosummit TV: Graphene is a very promising material that won the Nobel prize in 2010. CTO Rune Wendelbo pitches Graphene Batteries from Norway at ECO13 London. The Oslo-based startup targets the market for batteries in transportation that is forecasted to be $21B in 2020 and develops the active material on the cathode, a key component that represents 25% of the value of the battery. Rune and his team claim that their Graphene-LFP (Lithium Iron Phosphate) composite for the cathode promises increased energy density, lifetime, safety as well as non-toxic production. On a lab scale Graphene Batteries achieved proof of concept but they still need to demonstrate that their manufacturing process is scalable. To establish the pilot production Rune wants to raise $2.2M and thinks that an exit to a chemical corporate with a strong position in the battery business could happen within 3 years.

Ecosummit TV: The best entrepreneurs come from Estonia. Taavi Madiberk proves this claim during his disruptive pitch at Ecosummit Berlin 2012. The Estonian startup Skeleton Technologies develops and produces high energy batteries that benefit from high power density. As a result, Skeleton’s ultracapacitors are 50 to 80% cheaper than its competitors. Skeleton recently opened an office in Berlin and plans its first factory in Saxony. Skeleton’s value proposition and strategy sound very promising and it looks like investors are already chasing this smart green startup jewel. Moreover, it’s a lot of fun to watch übercool Taavi on Ecosummit TV.

Elon Musk turns 40 this year and is already the super hero entrepreneur of the smart green economy. Being an engineer he believes entrepreneurship means applying logic and critical thinking to a given problem in order to develop the best new solution. Elon likes to reinvent and reengineer problems on a big scale, especially transportation on the road and in space and production of clean energy. Next to being CEO and Product Architect of Tesla Motors, Elon is also CEO and CTO of SpaceX and Chairman of Solar City.

At ECO11, the consultant and automotive expert Gregor Matthies, Partner, Bain & Company, gave a well-prepared overview of the Electric Mobility market. It turns out that German car makers are not leading the development of new EVs which I personally regret. At the same time, this offers new business opportunities for startups that want to develop new electric future cars and sell them later to the OEMs.

Based in Spain’s Basque country, Hiriko is the first company to build the electric City Car developed by MIT’s Medialab. Hiriko sounds Japanese but it is in fact a mix of Basque and Spanish: hiri = urban, ko = short for coche (car). Hiriko’s networked urban cars are designed to be used only as shared cars. Imagine a future where you can take any car when you leave your home or office. Imagine a future where all shared cars are electric. That’s where we have to be.